Weigel: Sarah Palin gets personal in SBA List speech

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In what he describes as "a fast-paced and revealing" address Friday morning to the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, Washington Post blogger David Weigel reports that Sarah Palin's address was part campaign speech and part personal reflections on learning that Trig would be born with Down syndrome and how eldest daughter Bristol could cope with an unplanned pregnancy:

"I never ordered up, planned on, being the mother of a son with special needs," said Palin. "I thought, God would never give me something I couldn't handle."

Trig, said Palin, was "the best thing that ever happened" to her and her family. She recalled looking into her newborn son's eyes and imagining what he thought: "See, God knows what he's doing! He gave me to you, and He gave you to me! See, it's going to be good."

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She praised her daughter Bristol "for having to endure some public humiliation, bless her heart, there on the national stage," and informed the crowd of Bristol's pro-abstinence slogan, "pause before you play."

On politics, Palin was pugnacious and confident, reminding the crowd that she'd endorsed Senate candidate Carly Fiorina in California and that she'd be in South Carolina to endorse dark horse gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.

"There's a whole stampede of pink elephants coming down the road," said Palin, "ETA November 2010!"

Palin contrasted the candidates she was supporting with antiabortion Democrats who, after a tussle, ended up backing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"We won't forget those who buckled at the last moment in exchange for a nonbinding executive order from the most pro-choice president in history," said Palin, referring to retiring Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). "Our new pro-life pro-woman majority will actually be pro-life when it counts, when those voters are needed."

Updates: More coverage from the Washington Post here.

- JP